To
quote my mother, this blog might be a bumper issue – ha ha, hope it doesn’t
disappoint!!
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| Cameras are not allowed so had to take this in stealth mode |
The
Royal Cape Yacht Club is situated almost in the centre of the Cape Town Harbour
and as such the three access gates are controlled for security purposes. Once we became accepted members of RCYC we
were able to get an access permit for these entrances into the Harbour but
until then we had to conform to the relevant security rules, which wouldn’t be
so bad if they were consistent but it seemed that the process depended on the
time of day, day of the week, security officer on duty and differed from gate
to gate. Sometimes we had to fill in a
register, sometimes a tear off slip, sometimes the boot was searched (we still
have no idea what for) sometimes they just open the boom. Most times we would be in the wrong lane,
even though it is marked for permit and non-permit holders, too much effort to
walk. Nothing for it but to laugh – made
for great guessing games, but thankfully we have a permit at last, plain
sailing now…
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| Making the mold |
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| Good use of tinned food |
Kevin
dug deep and mustered up the enthusiasm to upgrade the plumbing on the port
side. This meant taking out the old
shower trough and replacing the previous fiberglass mold that he made in Cape
St Francis, but has since refined the design of on the Starboard side.
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| Little spaces |
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| Making a cupboard to install the washing machine |
This involved a lot of digging out of sika
and cleaning up of surfaces (lots of patience – confined space and a messy job). At the same time we plumbed the washing machine
in, its inlet connected to the boats fresh water tanks and its outlet going
into the same shower trough to be pumped out.
A new bilge pump was also installed.
The mold was a work of art, a bit of tricky engineering using tins of
vegetables and to great excitement the whole thing was complete.
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| Beautiful result |
Then disaster struck L whilst the sika used to
reset the new trough was setting I stumbled into the bathroom at night and
stood in the new trough, forgetting that the cover was not on it
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| What a mess! |
and broke the
beautiful new base out, it is temporarily held together with loads of sika but
poor Kevin is going to need to once again remove and re-build the shower trough
then re-plumb it.
I guess the fact that
he is still talking to me says a lot for his patience. I did at least take the opportunity, whilst
everything was open, to get into the bilges and paint them out, tough job.
We
have taken to walks along the promenade in the mornings. There are so many arty props dotted around,
testament to the artistic flair that is Cape Town. One that really interests Kevin is a Rhino
that is various shapes and sizes pieces of metal, specifically cut and placed
and when lined up from the correct spot form a Rhino, much like the Nelson
Mandela bust in the Midlands.
Whilst
in Richards Bay we befriended a barber and Kevin enjoyed cheap, neat haircuts –
bit of pampering and like I say, neat.
All the way down the coast, in one place or another we seem to have
found a barber and notably the cost of that clipping (Kevin doesn’t have a lot
of hair!!) has increased. A couple of
weeks ago we spotted a “Mr Hobbs the Barber” at the V&A Waterfront and did
a bit of investigating. R220.00 for a
cut and R200.00 for a hot towel shave, eeeek, needless to say we are back to a
number two all round whilst standing on the walk-on.
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| Awesome racing helm |
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| Bucket & chuck it option on a racing boat |
Next
on the agenda was the annual Cape Town Boat Show. Really interesting this year as there were a
large number of Catamarans on show, second hand and new. We really enjoyed, as always, exploring other
boats, trying to get ideas to make our lives easier, only this year we were
inexplicably drawn to the Maverick 440, a 44 foot Catamaran that just felt so
much like home. After chatting to the builders,
it turns out Phil Southwell, same designer of our yacht, designed that one too.
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| Love this pull pit idea |
As luck would have it, the same Phil
Southwell then arrived on the Maverick and we had a glass of wine with him and
chatted about his designs and yachts, he is around our age so must have been
incredibly young when he designed the Island Spirit Catamarans, my respect
grows. 
The static display in the hall
was pretty cool, found some interesting stuff, most especially my SUP (Stand Up
Paddle) Board and Paddle that I have wanted for years, Kevin finally got the
inflatable one that he insisted on and all round we are pretty happy with the
new toy. |
| Big Tug in road |
A
week later and we had a dinner date with Dave Bennett who was briefly in Cape
Town, a meal punctuated with great excitement as it coincided with the first
Wednesday night race for the season and there was a massive turn-out, 42 boats
on the water, which meant the road outside the club was parked full of cars at
the same time as they were trying to transport a huge new tug boat to the
docks, it ended up in the road for some hours before enough sailors were back
to move their vehicles. This was
followed by a flash visit from Graeme and Michelle for the weekend (way too
short). Perfect timing though as there
was a Round Robben Island Pursuit Race on the Saturday that we had
entered. At the same time our friend Marc
was in South Africa from Spain, staying with Eileen in Glencairn, so they also
joined us for the day.  |
| Our track around Robben Island |
The wind, not
quite true to form, just died, it took us almost 2 hours to cross the start
line. After floundering around we took a
decision that we all wanted to actually experience a trip around Robben Island,
not all of us had been around it, so we retired from the race, started our
motors and motored around, what a really lovely day it turned out to be – even
the whales put in an appearance. After
the race there was rugby and much drinking (mainly due to South Africa beating Wales)
and heaps of fun.
The
next week saw a brief visit by Steve and Elva from Richards Bay, we got to
meet Elva’s twin sister Neva, what an interesting lady with a serious love of
speed and car/motor bike racing, she drives the pace car at local racing
events, how awesome. Whilst Elva and
Neva were  |
| Elva, Jade and Neva |
braving the Ferrets Wheel they got to meet and take a photo with Jade
Hubner of Top Billing – hob knobbing with the rich and aimless!
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| Clipper Yacht Unicef |
We went out to putt around in the harbor on
the Saturday and were privileged to welcome and escort Unicef, one of the last
3 Clipper Yachts arriving in Cape Town. Very exciting. The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is
quite fascinating, the boats are identical 59ft monohulls with paying amateur
crew and qualified skippers.
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| Clipper boats in V&A |
Crew can
sign up for the whole race or for one or more legs at a cost of between £5
500.00 and £6 500.00 per leg, depending on which leg or a total of £46 600.00
for the whole race. It also goes the
“wrong way” around the world, against the Trade Winds so is a really tough trip
– still not sure why people pay vast sums of money to take part in this, but
they do. (https://www.clipperroundtheworld.com
)
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| Ian and Misha on Esmeralda in Durban |
Somewhere
in all this our friend Ian Slathem arrived back from Durban, having just parked
a 40foot Leopard Catamaran that he had delivered from Seychelles, final
destination Cape Town but they needed to effect a couple of repairs before the
journey could be continued. Ian was
looking for crew and as Kevin was heading for Japan I agreed to join Ian on the
Durban to Cape Town leg of the delivery, together with Misha, a young, bright,
pretty experienced sailor from Cape Town.
This saw us all at the airport on Sunday, Kevin flying to Japan an hour
after Steve, Elva and myself had departed for Durban. I was fortunate to spend a night on the
beautiful Sundowner Rose with Alan and Chrissy, absolute top class treatment,
then it was down to being crew as a short weather window had presented itself
that would see us at least to East London but we were hoping it might take us
all the way to Port Elizabeth.
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| All the pointers look like a "worm" |
After
the tedious task of clearing out (Customs, Immigration and Police clearance) was
complete and provisions had been bought and stashed, Tuesday afternoon we upped
lines and were off. The boat has no AIS
so Kevin and I rented a Spot Gen3 tracking device for a month which transmitted
our position via GPS to a SPOT account every 5 minutes, allowing all who had
the link to see where we were at any given time, really interesting and it
provided peace of mind as to the whereabouts of boat and crew, especially
seeing that hunting so far off shore for current meant being out of range of cell
phone or internet signal for most of the journey (http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0nXAf8561UNOnKHGCpLd9HafLcYf3JSEs)
modern technology is so awesome.
Sailing
past the Wild Coast was pretty exhilarating, we had wind from behind and made
great headway, until, as it so likes to do, the wind shifted and we were
getting soaked as waves stood up tall and proud in front of us (estimated
around 3.5 – 4m swells) before crashing down on top of the cockpit roof, thank
goodness for foul weather gear – I had just purchased my Musto BR2 jacket
(tested on the Volvo Ocean race) before we left. We had just skimmed past East London when the
wind swung and things were roughing up so we headed back to  |
| Opposite Buffalo River Yacht Club East London |
East London and hid
out there for two nights, the first one on the Water Police’ floating jetty and
the second rafted up against a “work-in-progress” catamaran at the yacht club,
nice as we could at least use the bathrooms but as there was a race weekend
down the road the club was closed as most were competing in/attending the
racing. Not sure how long this club can
sustain itself. We were welcomed into
the marina by two pairs of adult and juvenile dolphins catching fish for
brunch, never get tired of dolphins.
We
made it to Port Elizabeth at the same time as the “Black South Easter” which
blasted the whole South African coast leaving much destruction in its wake, we
have had reports from family and friends of trees uprooted and the water supply
being contaminated with salt water in South Coast KZN and the 66 knots of wind
that ripped through Tuzi Gazi marina in Richards Bay did severe damage to the
moorings which were pretty full with the influx of International boats,
fortunately there wasn’t much damage to boats.  |
| Trussed up like a Turkey in PE |
Even though we were tied to a mooring we bounced and bobbed like a cork
in boiling water, there is loads of surge in the Port Elizabeth marina. With the wind came sheets of rain, which in
turn found its way through various weak points, causing some interesting water
features inside and soaking mattresses and bedding, not very nice. This little show of force by Mother Nature
saw us spending two nights in Port Elizabeth, before an early morning departure
had us heading for Cape Town.
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| Hokule'a in Durban |
Leaving
Port Elizabeth at the same time as us was Hokule’a and her support boat Gershon
II – she has no motors so needs assistance in and out of harbours. Hokule’a is a 62 foot long, 20 foot wide replica
of an ancient Polynesian voyaging canoe that is currently on a four year
journey to circumnavigate the globe and generate awareness about climate
change. We first saw her moored behind
us in Durban Marina and were fascinated by the concept – the hulls are used for
storage and the crew sleep on the deck under canvas shelters, basically no
protection from severe elements – to think I was complaining about a little
water inside the boat, these guys must be soaking and freezing. What a motley crew too, 18 of them ranging
from two very young, probably early 20’s, to a couple who look to be in their
late 60’s. They were aiming for Cape
Town but planning to stop at Mossel Bay if necessary, guess it must have been as
they have not yet arrived here in Cape Town (udate on 10 November she was towed
into Simons Town by NSRI Rescue 10).
We
managed to get the parasail up and flying twice, it really lifts the front of
the boat and pulls it along nicely. Just
off Cape St Francis as I was reporting for my 24:00 – 03:00 shift, we were
treated to a spectacular 2 hour display by around 15 dolphins and schools of
fish swimming in the phosphorescence around the boat. Basically glow in the dark dolphins and fish,
a magnificent show. At the same time
there was a very bright flash off the port side close enough to cause panic as
to how a vessel had snuck up on us but it turned out to be an exploding meteor,
fascinating this sailing at night stuff.
Coming
across False Bay the wind picked up and eventually we were taking a side on
hammering of 30 knots of cold wind and waves, we turned into the bay for some
protection from land which worked for a while, but as soon as we rounded Cape
Point we felt the full force of the predicted 30 – 35 knots of Northerly
wind. Once into Table Bay the conditions
eased a little only now there was the issue of ships to dodge. We had a pretty close encounter with one, nav
lights on these big ships are not always easy to see at night, then another
game of chicken with “Deepwater Thalassa” a 781ft long Deepwater drillship
which our crew were convinced that by some miracle had “seen” us, I think it
more likely that we were very lucky that they changed their course to head into
the harbor thereby missing the rear of our boat.  |
| Esmeralda arriving at RCYC |
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| Just Reward |
By
7:30 we had found our way, tired and weather beaten, to the mooring at RCYC, to
be greeted by Steve and Fran, the new owners of Esmeralda, who made everything
right again with great champagne and strawberries.
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| Crew and Owners |
I
owe a huge thanks to everyone who followed us on the SPOT, for weather reports
(so needed and important) even from Japan J and for all the support
and encouragement I got from friends and family along the way – THANKS EVERYONE
x
One
thing this trip has taught me is that yacht deliveries are not what I enjoy. I like to spend time enjoying the sights and scenery
along the way and picking nice gentle weather windows to travel on that will not
tax crew or vessel. Delivering yachts
means getting the vessel to the end point as fast as weather will allow, any
wind is useable as long as it is not gale force but that generally means not a
lot of comfort, no time for smelling the roses.
We arrived in Cape Town 12 days after leaving Durban, including two
stops of two days each, that constitutes low flying in my book. I also, once again, marveled at the
magnificent coast line we have in South Africa, just beautiful and combined
with the many whales, dolphins, seals and birds we were privileged to see makes
this such a very special journey.
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| Kim and Bernhard enjoying a sundowner |
Flying,
or I should probably say bouncing at breakneck speed into Royal Cape Yacht Club
behind us on Saturday afternoon was Ethereal with our good friend Bernhard and
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| Farewell Ethereal |
Kim his skipper/crew for his Atlantic crossing.
I found them on Sunday and was able to help out as shopping guide cum
taxi. Monday morning they cleared out of
Cape Town and by lunch time I was throwing them their lines and waving them
farewell – next stop St Helena, Bon Voyage….
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| Home Sweet Home |
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| Kevin enjoying Japan |
So
now I am back on our beautiful Maxscene and
Kevin will be back from Japan in a
couple of days. What an interesting
month this has been….
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